Internship Unisport Youth Sports Academy

Name: Unisport
Location: Kabwe - area Makululu
Capacity: about 150 children
Education: every morning from 08.00 until 12.00
Sports: every afternoon from 14.00 until 16.00
Volunteers: +/- 5
Mentor: Mr. Msiska
My groups: the  two groups with the oldest children, because they speak and understand English

What is Unisport

Unisport is a local organisation which provides education and sport for street children.

The organisation wants the children to have a fair start in life, and helps by offering education to them who can't afford it. The subjects that are taught in the educational part in the morning are English, mathematics and general studies, which include religious education, history, civics, ...
In the afternoon the children come to a playing field and do sports.
The organisation completely relies on volunteers.
The space where the lessons are is for free and the teachers are doing everything on a voluntary base. This makes Unisport a flexible project, sometimes a teacher isn't there, and the planning has to be adjusted.

Structure Unisport

This is an example of how a day at Unisport can be :

08.00 : 09.00 - English

09.00 : 09.45 - English

09.45 : 10.00 - break

10.00 : 11.00 - Mathematics

11.00 : 12.00 - Mathematics

12.00 : 14.00 - break

14.00 : 16.00 - sport at Sabels

At the moment the education project is located in a tent at Don Bosco Youth Centre, the

fathers there were so kind to offer us the space for free.
It's not ideal because every morning the chairs have to be put into the tent, and at the end of the morning they have to be put back into the container, it's quite a lot of work, and the children are not able to do it on their own. There are only two parts of blackboard available and there are four classes. Not all of the children have a good notebook and a pen, so it takes a lot of time for them to copy something from the blackboard.
The youngest groups are with so many children that it's very hard for the teacher to give each and every one of them the attention they need to understand what's being said.
In the afternoon the oldest children can come to Sabels (an orphanage and school for street children) and do sports against a team from Sabels.
The girls mostly do a sort of handball, and the boys play football.

My first experiences at Unisport

There are a lot of children and they really want to learn.

But it's so hard to learn them new things when you don't speak their language (Bemba).
There are huge skill differences and also huge age differences. There are children who are 14 who can't read or write, and next to them sits a boy of 8 who does know how to do all of those things.
The most of them are doing the best they can, but with some it's like you just can't get to them. They listen to your question but don't answer it. They look at the sums on the blackboard but will copy the answer from their neighbour, without thinking for themselves. And those are often the ones from who you want to know if they understood it or not.
It is really nice to see how they enjoy learning and how proud are if they know the correct answer.

             Mr.Msiska             

                   

 the tent at Don Bosco

one of the classes

Teacher training secondary school Kabwe

Name: Bwacha Highschool

Location: Kabwe - area Bwacha
Grades: 9 - 10 - 11 -12
Capacity: approximately 1300 pupils
Average class size: 45 pupils
Lesson period: 40 minutes
Teachers: 70
Mentor: Mr. Mwanza
My class: 11 A - 22 pupils - age 15

Teaching techniques teachers Bwacha Highschool.

The pupils don't have their own books, this means that either the teacher should bring the books for all the pupils to the classroom, what he usually doesn't do, or that he has to write everything on the blackboard. Mostly they choose to write everything on the blackboard. The pupils have to copy everything the teacher writes on the blackboard into their notebook. This takes a lot of time, and in the meanwhile the teacher leaves the classroom and comes back half an hour later to see if everyone is finished. Now you probably think that that's a lot of time, but they write really slow, so when the teacher comes back there are often pupils who still haven't finished.
Then they hand in their notebooks for the teacher to correct them, he takes them to his office, and the class manager will collect them during the break, and generally that's everything for a lesson period.
The interaction between teacher and pupil is minimal. Only sometimes pupils dare to ask questions to the teacher. They do ask each other, because the teachers isn't in the classroom most of the time.

Structure Bwacha Highschool

The first lesson period starts at 07.30 and the duration of every lesson period is 40 minutes.

This is how a lesson schedule looks like:

07.30 : 08.10 - first period

08.10 : 08.50 - second period

08.50 : 09.30 - third period

09.30 : 10.10 - fourth period
10.10 : 10.30 - break

10.30 : 11.10 - fifth period
11.10 : 11.50 - sixth period
11.50 : 12.30 - seventh period
12.30 : 13.10 - eight period

13.10 : 14.30 - break

14.30 : 16.30 - pupils come to school to read, do homework, or projects.

I'm not sure if this counts for every teacher, but my mentor teaches 16 periods a week.    
If pupils don't attend in class there's no restriction for that.
And if teachers don't make it to teach a lesson that's also not a problem.
The classes are divided into levels, the best classes are the 'A' classes and then it continues until 'G'.
There are classes which contain up to 90 pupils. They have to share desks, and sometimes there isn't a chair for everyone of them, then pupils also share the chairs.  
There is a high level of respect expected from the pupils, when a teacher enters the classroom they all rise, the teacher has to greet them, they respond with 'good morning Madam/Sir' and when the teacher allows them to sit, they can sit down. They have to wear the school uniform, for girls a skirt with socks up to the knees and a blouse with a tie, for boys trousers with a blouse and a tie. If it's cold they also wear a pullover. All these clothes have the logo of the school on them.
The only marks the pupils get are the ones on the exams at the end of each period.
Pupils have 3 months school, 1 month holiday, and that three times a year.


My first experiences teaching class 11A

I had already done my observation in class 11A, I had introduced myself.

But when Mr. Mwanza and I entered the room, it could have also been that they had seen a ghost.
Mr. Mwanza told them that I was going to teach from now on, and then he had to leave for some urgent business. I started with some questions about their previous lessons, but I didn't get a lot of response. They put nametags on their desks so I could call them by name.
I taught  a lesson about 'conditions' and whenever I asked if they understood everyone would nod and say 'yes'.  Then I would ask a question to see if they really got it, and they often didn't know the correct answer. I explained them that they just had to ask if they didn't understood. They really looked at me like they had never heard such a strange thing.
They are also not used to a teacher who stays in the classroom, and walks around and sees if everything is clear. One of the difficulties with my class is that they are really not used to the interaction, and that they don't really speak up, the strong Zambian accent is hard to understand so they need to speak loud and clearly.

one of the classrooms

                                   

Mr. Mwanza

the school

African style

Monday 27-02-2012:

I taught my first lesson at Makululu, giving directions and mathematics. It's been a while since I did mathematics myself! And I hadn't prepared anything, because actually someone else would be teaching that day. Seeing the circumstances, it went well.

Tuesday 29-02-2012:

I went to Bwacha Highschool, had to be there at 07.30, I arrived at 07.35. That wasn't a problem, mr. Mwanza wasn't in yet. I waited until 09.30, mr. Mwanza still wasn't in. Let's call him again. 'Yes, I will be there soon'. Ok, and indeed, 5 minutes later, there he was. He had had an appointment at the bank, and it took longer than he thought it would. No problem, but now he also had an appointment with another girl and we both went with him to his office. We talked a bit, about that I already missed the first lesson that I would observe, (ow yes, it's already too late to see that lesson now) and then I waited until he would finish with the stuff he had to arrange for the girl. An hour later, just before the next lesson that he had to teach, he said to me: 'Ehh I'm not going to make it to teach that lesson, can't you come back tomorrow?' I asked him who was going to teach then? And he answered that the pupils wouldn't have class then. And then I made an appointment for 09.30 the next day, and I double-checked if he would be at school.

Wednesday 29-02-2012:

I walked to Bwacha Highschool, only 75 minutes :). I observed the class of mr. Mwanza. And then I had to wait until the P.E. lesson would start at 14.00, after two hours of waiting the teacher came to tell me that the sport was cancelled. So then I went back home again.

Thursday 01-02-2012:

Taught at Makululu, and then we went to play a football match against the kids from 'Sabels'. Sabels is an organization that also provides education for vulnerable children, my mentor Geoffrey does the counseling there. When the ground that Unisport uses is too wet (like now it is the rain season), we sometimes go to Sabels. Then all of the sudden we had an unexpected performance from a real Zambian band, real good music, in the sun, in the middle of nowhere. Fantastic, things like that can only happen here.

Friday 02-02-2012:

Sports day at Bwacha Highschool, 1,5 hour to late but then it started. Running in the burning sun, respect for the boys and girls who did the 5000 or 3000 meters. They had a lot of running events, also because the lack of materials for other events. They also did high jump and long jump, in a self digged sand pit (sometimes if they jumped wrong it was kind of scary to see if they would land safely) Then one of the guys took an running start for the high jump, and I was already amazed about how high they could jump that high and land on their feet, but it looked like he was going to do the fosbury-flop, I held my breath, and oooo he just did an somersault over 1 meter 45!! Quite amazing.

Weekend

Visiting possible guest families in Kabwe.

Why the title is 'African style'? Because life has its own rhythm over here. And nothing goes like you would expect. Sometimes really nice, and sometimes you have to wait and wait and....